


hiraeth;

by badbavarois



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Attempt 218, Character Study, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Kinda?, Making Out, Picnics, eleanor centric, fake lovers to real lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badbavarois/pseuds/badbavarois
Summary: a homesickness for a home you can’t return toIf this isn't the Good Place, why doesn't Eleanor want to lose it?





	hiraeth;

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smokeandshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokeandshadows/gifts).



> for daley - happy anniversary/valentines day. i hope this makes you happy

When Eleanor opens her eyes, she’s sitting on a couch. It’s leather, nicer than the one in her apartment. She swallows; her mouth tastes like the aftermath of a weekend out with the girls, but she’s not sore, and her head doesn’t hurt. The fluorescent overhead lights don’t give her a cluster headache.

 

She looks around - the walls are beige, and across from her, it says,  _ WELCOME! EVERYTHING IS FINE _ . A few plants are placed on side tables, magazines litter the coffee table. It feels like a doctor’s office.

 

To the left, a door opens, and an old man sticks his head out. He looks like a doctor, too, with his graying hair and thick glasses, or a teacher Eleanor would have tripped in the hallways at school, when she was younger. 

 

“Eleanor? Come on in.”

 

The room feels the same as the one she was in before, but more lived in, until the beige walls feel less like a doctor’s office and more like an office. Nicer than the office Eleanor works in, selling fake medicine to cancer patients. 

 

“Where am I?” The room is too nice to be the office of someone running a sex ring, and Michael looks too nice, too. But still. Eleanor knows looks can be deceiving. “Who are you?”

 

“Right. So: you, Eleanor Shellstrop, are dead. Your life on Earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.

 

“I’m -  _ what?”  _ She couldn’t be dead - that was what happened to the people who took the pills she sold or stayed out too late dancing in clubs in the bad part of town. 

 

“You died,” Michael repeats. Eleanor decides she hates him in that moment. He doesn’t seem upset about it, just says it like it’s a normal occurrence and she should just accept it.

 

“How?”

 

“Ah,” he smiles, but it’s tight. “For the more… embarrassing deaths, we wipe memories. They’ll return eventually, given time.”

 

“But - “

 

Michael cuts her off before she can ask another question. “Janet will show you the neighborhood. I’ll see you around, Eleanor.”

 

…

 

When Janet the AI  _ (not a robot!)  _ shows her Tahani Al-Jamil, her soulmate, she knows Michael made a mistake. Tahani is perfect, all airbrushed dewy skin and glossy waves and dazzling teeth. And her voice -  _ her voice  _ \- it does things to Eleanor.

 

“Eleanor?” Tahani is standing in front of her, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing.” She smiles. She hates her house, with the lack of stairs and creepy clown portraits she supposedly loved, that the  _ good  _ Eleanor Shellstrop loved. “Sorry, finding out you died and went to heaven can mess with a girl’s head.” She reaches out and takes her hand. They’re smooth, and warm. “But, I’m glad I’m here with you, dude.”

 

…

 

_ “Eleanor.” _

 

She jolts awake, and her forehead smacks into Janet’s, who’s hovering six inches away from Eleanor’s face. She flops back down, palm to her throbbing face. She groans, and rolls over. “God, Janet. It’s like… three am? What do you want?”

 

“You told me to give you this.” It’s dark, but Janet’s face is close enough to Eleanor’s that she can see them reach into their mouth and pull out a folded piece of paper. They hand it to Eleanor. She almost drops it, expecting it to be wet, but it’s completely dry.

 

When she unfolds it, it says,  _ THIS ISN’T REAL  _ in her own handwriting _. _

 

“What the fork does that even  _ mean - “  _ she looks up at Janet, but they’re gone. Eleanor is alone again.

 

…

 

When she wakes, she tells herself it was just a dream, something caused by the shock of the Good Place. But, deep down she knows she can’t dream, not anymore. When she finds the note, shoved in a bedside drawer, she stops breathing.

 

“This is fine, Eleanor,” she says. “You’ve handled worse. Fork, Michael said you’re dead. Finding out it’s just some weird alcohol-induced reality isn’t that bad.”

 

Except it is. It’s bad, horrible, _horrendous,_ really, because Tahani is supermodel perfect and donated billions to every charity on the gosh darn Earth, and Eleanor couldn’t even be nice to the earth forker in front of the grocery store. And Tahani is smart, even if she is a bit oblivious sometimes. 

 

She’s realizes something is wrong, soon enough.

 

...

 

Tahani drags her out on a picnic that night. Eleanor felt overdressed, in nice dark wash jeans and a flannel, but when Tahani picks her up, golden collar bones exposed under a silky, knee-length dress, she knows she’s anything but.

 

“My sister and I used to do this when we were little,” Tahani said, once the moon had fully risen over the neighborhood. They’re laying on their backs, hands linked between them, staring up at unfamiliar stars.  “And one of the maids, too, to serve the lemonade. Mother hated when we drank too much - we would be up half the night and look dreadful in the morning.”

 

Tahani’s laugh is soft, like wind chimes, but Eleanor hates the words.  _ Eleanor  _ didn’t have a maid, singular, or maids, plural, or butlers or chefs or even a cleaning lady to do housework once a month. She had herself, cleaning up after her drunk mom.

 

“What did you do, Eleanor, when you were little?”

 

“I mostly kept to myself.” It's true enough, and just the good parts.  _ I kept to myself during the day to avoid my mom and snuck out at night when she was too drunk to notice.  _

 

“That’s too bad. When I was little, my parents were always whisking up from social function to social function. Sometimes,” her voice breaks, “I feel like Kamilah and I were just trophies for our parents, something to show off how  _ perfect  _ they were at everything.”

 

“Trust me,” Eleanor says, “it’s better to be a trophy than a doormat.”

 

“I don’t think anyone could ever use you as a doormat, unless you let them.”

 

Eleanor doesn’t know what to say to that, so she lets the conversation taper off, and syncs her breathing with her soulmate’s and tries to not exist. 

 

…

 

The sun rises overhead, burning her cheeks. She blinks, yawns, stretches. Beside her, Tahani starts to move.

 

_ Tahani. _

 

Eleanor flinches away. They must have fallen asleep last night during the picnic, because the stars are long gone and the grass is covered in dew. It’s not cold, but Eleanor still shivers. 

 

It doesn’t take long for Tahani to wake up either. She looks like a princess straight out of a fairy tale, like Sleeping Beauty, not a single hair out of place and not a wrinkle in her dress. Eleanor looks like shirt and she’s pretty sure there’s drool on her thigh.

 

“Good morning, love,” Tahani says. Something’s off, shifted a few millimeters to the right. Things aren’t lining up, but Eleanor doesn’t know how to tilt her head to see reality. She just keeps staring at Tahani, not breathing.

 

“Eleanor?”

 

She knows, if she looks just a little bit harder, searches a little bit deeper, she’ll see the truth.

 

“Eleanor, you're scaring me.” Tahani’s hands are cold on her cheeks, grounding, but she still can’t breathe. “Please say something.”

 

“This isn’t real.” She thinks about the note, tries to know what it means. This isn’t a dream, isn’t anything close. 

 

“What do you mean?” Tahani leans closer. She’s sitting on her knees, skirt fanning out, hands holding Eleanor’s face. She’s a flower. Eleanor is going to destroy her, one day, and she can’t stop that.

 

“Nothing,” she shakes her head, smiles, but she’s tearing up. She blinks them back, forces the smile bigger. “I’m cool, dude. Sleep forked me up.”

 

Tahani smiles too, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She looks at Eleanor like she’s porcelain seconds away from shattering. Eleanor feels like she might. 

 

…

 

It’s two nights later and Eleanor is kissing Tahani when it finally clicks. She lurches back, stumbles over the porch step and falls flat on her ass.

 

It stings, but she’s staring at Tahani and saying, “Am I your bad place?”

 

“What?” 

 

“This isn’t the good place,” Eleanor says first, because it’s easier than the next sentence. “So am I your bad place?”

 

“This is the Good Place, Eleanor, don’t be silly.” She looks like angel, a glowing halo of yellow window light behind her. Eleanor wishes she had kept kissing her, had stayed deep in the illusion. She was happy there, wasn’t she? Or did she just convince herself to be happy, because she thought it was the good place? 

 

“It’s not. You  _ know  _ it’s not.” She’s still sitting on her ass. “So answer the forking question.”

 

“I - “ Tahani swallows. “I don’t - I don’t think you are someone I would have loved under normal circumstances. You’re - you’re not even on IMDB for the time you were an extra on a B-rated horror romp.”

 

“But?” God, please let there be a but.

 

“These are not normal circumstances, are they, Eleanor?” She’s right, and that’s the one thing that keeps Eleanor’s heart from shattering.

 

…

 

Eleanor sleeps over at Tahani’s a week later. Tahani’s bed is big, plush pillows and down blankets. Eleanor is sleeping in a ratty old shirt and shorts. While she was brushing her teeth Tahani slipped on the t-shirt Eleanor had been wearing. Tahani makes it look luxurious.

 

They’re not touching, and Eleanor hates it. Even if they’re not soulmates, even if this is the Bad Place, Tahani made her feel a little more real, a little more whole. She reaches out, fingers shaking, for Tahani. She finds her under the blankets, warm and soft as always. In the dark, she feels less like a supermodel and more like a human, more like something to hold and cherish. 

 

Tahani reaches back and her hands shake too, pulling Eleanor into her chest, arms wrapping around her stomach. Until they fall asleep, hearts beating in time, Eleanor knows what it means to have a soulmate.

 

…

 

They kiss, hold hands, walk around the neighborhood and eat frozen yogurt. Eleanor has never dated anyone, never been in love, has never wanted desperately to hold on to someone until it breaks her. She can laugh, she can flirt and smile and fool around, but this is foreign land.

 

This, she cannot handle. This will break her. 

 

…

 

Michael finds out the truth, eventually. Eleanor and Tahani are cooking in Eleanor’s kitchen - Tahani had insisted, saying cooking in her kitchen would ruin the finish - when he storms in.

 

“How long have you known?”

 

“That Kylie was pregnant?” Tahani scoffs. “It’s not like she even  _ tried  _ to hide it - “

 

“Shut up,” Michael says. “You know what I mean.”

 

“A while,” Eleanor says. “But I totally agree with Tahani. Like, did she even look in a mirror?”

 

“I know! And Khloe - “

 

Michael groans and pushes his thumbs against his eyes. “I am going to restart the neighborhood and you’re not going to remember any of this, and then I am going to take a nice long bath, and never think about either of them again, okay?”

 

He turns to walk out of the kitchen, but Eleanor stops him. “Can we have a few minutes first?”

 

He sighs, waves his hand. “Fine, but only five minutes.”

 

Once he’s gone, Tahani turns to face Eleanor.

 

“Eleanor,” she starts to say, but Eleanor is already on her, pressing their mouths together, tongue brushing against Tahani’s lips. She drags her fingers through Tahani’s hair, not caring if she messes it up. She has five minutes, and then she won’t ever remember this. 

 

_ “I love you,”  _ she mumbles against Tahani’s lips, breathing hard. They’re not kissing anymore, but neither of them pull away. Existing in the same space is enough, has to be enough. “I love you so much.”

 

“I love you too,” Tahani says. Her cheeks are damp. 

 

Eleanor squeezes her hip with one hand, pulls her hair with the other, and they’re kissing again, mouths moving as one. Eleanor doesn’t care if this is the bad place, or if she and Tahani aren’t soulmates, or if neither of them deserve soulmates. She loves her, heart and soul. 

 

The five minutes end and Michael comes back. He looks sad, almost, but Eleanor doesn’t trust him. When the world goes black, Eleanor’s arms are still wrapped around Tahani.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are appreciated. might write more of this ship in the future? comedy isn't my forte so this was a struggle.  
> requests - open, but not guaranteed.   
> tumblr - claude-lit/shuos-jedao  
> twitter - cactixix


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